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"Loneliness irritates me like a broken nail," says a line in a Romanian poem. The truth is, loneliness stings, pulls apart, and resembles the coffee dregs left at the bottom of the pot in which joy and love once brewed. Although the fear of loneliness is natural, we can choose to see solitude as something more than a "flowering wilderness" and embrace it...

“Hi, I’m Rebecca, and I’m a shopaholic!” This line, along with the character, though from a comedy released in 2009, is cut from the fabric of everyday reality. Shopping has become an indispensable appendage of modern life. However, when it ceases to be just an accessory to a much more complex existence and moves to the centre of an individual’s focus, the leap...

I once invited the cashier at my local 7-Eleven petrol station to join me and my friends on a beach couch made of sand to eat hotdogs after his shift. To our surprise, he not only came but continued to join us for months after.

To err is human. “The only sure way to avoid making mistakes is to have no ideas”, Albert Einstein said.

Life is not just a very cool gift. It is something that a person receives on loan from God. That's the conclusion of Oscar, the child hero of "Oscar and the Lady in Pink," a novel written by Franco-Belgian playwright, short story writer, and novelist Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt.

“To them I will give within my temple and its walls a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that will endure forever” (Isaiah 56:5).

When we want to position ourselves for or against voluntary euthanasia, we must first be aware that, in addition to the subjective dimension of the issue, there are also important objective aspects to consider.

Most of us want to trust. We assume that others possess our own level of honesty and goodwill. Sadly, this is neither a sensible nor a safe attitude anymore.

"Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful"—Samuel Johnson.

"If I cut off your arm, will your husband take you again?" "My husband loves me very much." So he started cutting. "There was no alternative."

I recently watched a TV show in which the guests, which included professors and psychotherapists, when asked about the feminine ideal in the contemporary world, expressed opinions that seemed strange to me: that such an ideal would no longer be detectable or would no longer have a purpose, today...

“You are always afraid people will judge you or know your weakness. It’s like being totally naked in front of a huge crowd,” says Bruno Feldeisen about the hidden struggle he had with anxiety.

Well, yes, we are, according to Rutger Bregman, author of Human Kind. Early in his book he introduces us to Tom Postmes, professor of social psychology at the University of Groningen who, every year, asks students the same question. “Imagine an aeroplane makes an emergency landing and breaks into three parts. As the cabin fills with smoke, everybody inside realises: We’ve got to...

When a closed window shade becomes an SOS sent by those used to living on their own but afraid of dying alone, something has fundamentally changed in a society that not long ago valued human relationships.

If you're unhappy in your relationship, do you think that formalising it with a marriage certificate will finally bring you happiness? The ever-increasing divorce rate is no coincidence, and experts emphasise the importance of taking a realistic approach to marriage.